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#+date: <2022-06-24 Fri 00:00:00>
#+title: Rediscovering My Passion for Linux
#+description: Exploring my journey back to Linux, sharing reasons for leaving macOS, and detailing my Fedora and i3 desktop setup.
#+slug: fedora-i3
* Leaving macOS
As I noted [[../foss-macos-apps][in a recent post]], I have been
planning on migrating from macOS back to a Linux-based OS. I am happy to
say that I have finally completed my migration and am now stuck in the
wonderful world of Linux again.
My decision to leave macOS really came down to just a few important
things:
- Apple Security (Gatekeeper) restricting me from running any software I
want. Even if you disable Gatekeeper and allow software to bypass the
rest of the device installation security, you still have to repeat
that process every time the allowed software is updated.
- macOS sends out nearly constant connections, pings, telemetry, etc. to
a myriad of mysterious Apple services. I'm not even going to dive into
how many macOS apps have constant telemetry on, as well.
- Lastly, I just /really/ missed the customization and freedom that
comes with Linux. Being able to switch to entirely new kernel, OS, or
desktop within minutes is a freedom I took for granted when I switched
to macOS.
Now that I've covered macOS, I'm going to move on to more exciting
topics: my personal choice of OS, DE, and various customizations I'm
using.
* Fedora
After trying a ton of distros (I think I booted and tested around 20-25
distros), I finally landed on [[https://getfedora.org/][Fedora Linux]].
I have quite a bit of experience with Fedora and enjoy the =dnf= package
manager. Fedora allows me to keep up-to-date with recent software (I'm
looking at you, Debian), but still provides a level of stability you
don't find in every distro.
In a very close second place was Arch Linux, as well as its spin-off:
Garuda Linux (Garuda w/ sway is /beautiful/). Arch is great for
compatibility and the massive community it has, but I have just never
had the time to properly sit down and learn the methodology behind their
packaging systems.
Basically, everything else I tested was unacceptable in at least one way
or another. Void (=glibc=) was great, but doesn't support all the
software I need. Slackware worked well as a tui, but I wasn't skilled
enough to get a tiling window manager (WM) working on it.
** i3
One of the reasons I settled on Fedora is that it comes with an official
i3 spin. Being able to use a tiling WM, such as i3 or sway, is one of
the biggest things I wanted to do as soon as I adopted Linux again.
I will probably set up a dotfile repository soon, so that I don't lose
any of my configurations, but nothing big has been configured thus far.
The two main things I have updated in i3wm are natural scrolling and
binding my brightness keys to the =brightnessctl= program.
1. Natural Scrolling
You can enable natural scrolling by opening the following file:
#+begin_src sh
sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
#+end_src
Within the =40-libinput.conf= file, find the following input sections
and enable the natural scrolling option.
This is the =pointer= section:
#+begin_src conf
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput pointer catchall"
MatchIsPointer "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
Option "NaturalScrolling" "True"
EndSection
#+end_src
This is the =touchpad= section:
#+begin_src conf
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
Option "NaturalScrolling" "True"
EndSection
#+end_src
2. Enabling Brightness Keys
Likewise, enabling brightness key functionality is as simple as
binding the keys to the =brightnessctl= program.
To do this, open up your i3 config file. Mine is located here:
#+begin_src sh
nano /home/<my-user>/.config/i3/config
#+end_src
#+begin_src conf
# Use brightnessctl to adjust brightness.
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec --no-startup-id brightnessctl --min-val=2 -q set 3%-
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec --no-startup-id brightnessctl -q set 3%+
#+end_src
3. =polybar=
Instead of using the default =i3status= bar, I have opted to use
=polybar= instead (as you can also see in the screenshot above).
My config for this menu bar is basically just the default settings
with modified colors and an added battery block to quickly show me
the machine's battery info.
4. =alacritty=
Not much to say on this part yet, as I haven't configured it much,
but I installed =alacritty= as my default terminal, and I am using
=zsh= and the shell.
* Software Choices
Again, I'm not going to say much that I haven't said yet in other blog
posts, so I'll just do a quick rundown of the apps I installed
immediately after I set up the environment.
Flatpak Apps:
- Cryptomator
- pCloud
- Signal
Fedora Packages:
- gomuks
- neomutt
- neofetch
- Firefox
- uBlock Origin
- Bitwarden
- Stylus
- Privacy Redirect
Other:
- exiftool
|
